


salt rose

by Coquette



Category: 91 Days (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Have a heaping slice of limey AngeloNero goodness, Hurt/Comfort, I just watched the last episode, Love/Hate, M/M, That shit don't cut it, Why can't boys talk about feelings, because what good are pineapples, instead of shooting each other, the second beach divorce, this is the cherik break-up all over again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 02:57:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8186758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coquette/pseuds/Coquette
Summary: They run.Nero cracks Avilio open to learn why he's been betrayed. Like the soft crumbling shell of an egg, Angelo acquiesces gracelessly.He doesn't anticipate his reaction to it.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YesYesNoBro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesYesNoBro/gifts).



> What? What was that? No. I refuse to accept that ambiguous ending. Where is the long awaited back-and-forth, deadly-punches-and-allegations-swung-every-which-way-resultant-brawl-to-hash-it-all-out-ends-in-sexing-on-the-floor?
> 
> ...I got so miffed, this ended up happening. Here, have some plot with a nice side-serving of lemon. (As it should have been.)

"Go right."

 

Nero turns his head.

 

"Go south," Angelo continues, evenly. "And you'll end up on Route 41."

 

"And where are we going?" Nero inquires lightly, an eyebrow raising.

 

 "The ocean," Angelo says, staring straight ahead. A long beat of silence. Then. "Have you ever seen it?"

 

Nero shrugs. "Nah,' he says, offhand. He considers it.

 

Angelo says nothing in reply, eyes dully fixed up on some point ahead.

 

He directs the car toward the road leading south.

 

Small steps.

 

-

 

The fire burns merrily, vivid light reflecting a comfortable orange-red glare onto the surrounding shrubs and bushes. Nero takes a sip of whiskey - it's good, but not Lawless Heaven good - and passes it over to Angelo who takes it with some little difficulty.

 

His hands are, after all, bound together. Precautionary measure. Nero might have been gullible, yes, but he's been cured real good of that trait by now.

 

 "Why didn't you just leave the city?" He looks over at Avi-...no, Angelo, curious as to why the traitor hadn't turn tail and run.

 

"I wanted to see my revenge play out." Angelo doesn't lift his bent head, eyes now trained on the crackling, leaping flames of the campfire.

 

Nero stares at him grimly. "Were you satisfied?"

 

After a moment where he still won't meet Nero's gaze, Angelo starts to speak. Haltingly, the words come out. "You know, I thought, by completing my revenge and making my family's killers pay, I would find a reason to live again."

 

It's as if he's speaking to himself; as if Nero isn't there, sitting across from him, listening to him. His face looks vacant, devoid of animation. "But there was nothing left," he murmurs, hunching in on himself. "It was all for nothing." The words sound as if they come from a great distance beyond; a far away place inside Angelo he hadn't known existed. A hard, broken truth. It does nothing however to stem the rage suddenly bubbling up inside Nero. It's a red hot anger that flares through him and burns up his throat.

 

"You've got to be kidding me," he spits. He stands up, teeth grit, suddenly confrontational. He's been itching for a good fight. The resentment has been festering under his skin all this time, just waiting for something to set him off. For nothing, Angelo had said. For nothing, his father and his men and his brother-

 

"Don't you dare try to sum it all up like that," he hisses venemously, fists trembling at his sides. He takes a leaping stride, has Angelo backed up against a tree in flat seconds.

 

"What about _them?_ " Distantly, he realizes he's yelling. The sound is drowned by the rush of blood pounding in his ears.  "Then what were their deaths _for_!?" His clenched fist slams across Angelo's right cheekbone, but Angelo just  _takes_ it, hanging limply from his hands.

 

He chokes back a sudden urge to drop to his knees then and there, to bury his face in the earth and weep tears of rage and grief. "Why didn't you kill me?" he demands, emotion strangling his voice. His hands fist, trembling, on the points of Angelo's shirt-collar. He closes his eyes. "I trusted you!" He starts to yell.

 

"-then you should have just killed me back then!" Angelo screams back into his face, suddenly alive with expression. Pain distorts his features, his face scrunching up, turning red as he starts to cry pitifully.

 

Nero is shocked into silence. The crying is real and ugly; the naked torture he's suffered writ plain across his features. "That night, seven years ago," Angelo manages, eyes shining with the glimmer of tears tracking their way down his face, hard sobs making him gasp and shake. " If you'd just shot me-"

 

He trails off, continuing to heave violent heavy sobs that wrack his entire body. It's an outpouring, a flood, an overworked dam finally buckling under the pressure of the water it kept vigilantly at bay.

 

Nero is struck dumb. 

 

He realizes he's never seen Angelo cry before this. He's never actually seen Angelo's face show anything other than a smirk or merciless determination. He's unable to say anything as he stands there. _If you'd just shot me_ , Angelo had said. But that means-

 

_-a memory of a little boy running away into the woods, bare foot in the snow, and it was his birthday and now he was all alone-_

 

And Nero also has the realization- that this is the true Angelo, the truth of the little boy all those years ago, a little lonely boy carrying  a pain in his heart that never faded. This means Angelo, strong proud Angelo is just the mask of shattered Angelo. The pain Nero's feeling now is something Angelo's nursed for nearly a decade.

 

He can't imagine how if the tables were reversed, he would have been able to survive. There is nothing soft about the person in front of him anymore.

 

The pounding beat of his blood recedes. He stares as Angelo falls apart in his arms, sobbing and moaning, sagging into Nero, letting him take his weight as if he's suddenly given up on everything including himself. He continues to stare mutely as Angelo's ugly hurtful gasping attempts to breathe turns into softer, less strident sobbing, the hands pressed weakly against his chest turning into steel traps clutching him tightly to Angelo. Angelo's knees buckle and they end up sliding down the tree, with Nero on his knees and Angelo sprawled in between.

 

"You don't need a reason to live," Nero says, despite the corresponding answering pain in his own heart.

 

He's tired. So tired. 

 

He draws an unresisting Angelo to him. "You just live," he murmurs to him, and it's also a promise. "You keep on living." He curls a hand around the back of Angelo's neck, rubs a thumb up and over his chin. Angelo stops his refusal to meet Nero's gaze, looks up at him with a sort of quiet surrender that's both poignant and endearing. His eyes are red rimmed and swollen, his mouth pink and bitten from keeping his sobs back. He's beautiful like this, broken, but, at last real. Nero has never before felt the intense ache he feels in his heart right then. He bends his head forward and, achingly slow, lays a brief claim just off Angelo's trembling mouth. He intends it to be comforting, to prove his understanding of Angelo's turmoil, a human connection to cling to when everything's just fallen apart in such spectacularly explosive fashion.

 

His skin is hot and feverish, his mouth a brand of the same fire blazing a few feet away.

 

Angelo makes a stifled sound that's all pain and hurt, and then he's shoving back against Nero, lips parting and moving incessantly like he wants to devour him.

 

Nero lets him, twists around till he's leaning up against the tree with Angelo astride him.

 

"You can let it go," he murmurs low, against that hot seeking mouth. His hands move, winding around Angelo's too-thin frame, holding him securely in his embrace. "It's okay. Let go."

 

Angelo shudders and his back bows, his head falling till they're forehead to forehead. His hands grip Nero's shoulders, and then, ever so slowly, he lets his head slide down into the crook of Nero's neck.

 

"I'm here," Nero repeats firmly. He strokes a hand down Angelo's back, memorizing the dips and bumps, the knobs protruding in his spine.  The reply he gets isn't voiced out loud but the patch of dampness expanding on Nero's shirt keeps him still. He tips his head back, and lets himself grieve alongside for all the things they've both lost. He may be man enough to admit that Angelo deserved his shot at revenge but he's not strong enough that it doesn't hurt like a gut-wrenching hollowess every time he thinks of it.

 

They stay that way for a long, long time.

 

"The reason I didn't kill you." Angelo speaks, after an interminable period passes."I- I couldn't." He pulls back to assess Nero's reaction.

 

Nero's lips twist. It's not an unkind expression but it's not a smile either. "Alright," he agrees eventually. It's the best he can do for now, anyway.

 

Angelo persists. He nudges forward, till Nero obligingly tilts his head up and slants their faces together. The kiss is long and thorough this time, sweet and a little bit perfect as Angelo narrates a story without any words that could do justice to define it. It's strange, this feeling that coils in his gut when he thinks about it, the feeling that thinks this could still be perfection despite the ruination of everything he's ever lived for. "I couldn't," Angelo repeats. "I want you. I need you. Only you," he continues, interlacing their fingers and pressing it against his sternum. "Only you know what's in here."

 

It's true, Nero reflects. What they have between them now, it's a shared pain. A loss borne of each other. Resentment, hatred, pain, a bond forged in the fires of that shared hell. It ties them together, this chain of mutual destruction and twisted understanding-

 

"Only you," Angelo breathes again, sweet and hot and moist, words falling right against Nero's ear. "You can fill me up."

 

-and...  what was Angelo-?

 

Angelo leans back, eyes quiet and serious. "Please, Nero," he says. "You can take this emptiness away. I know you can. Please."

 

He bends low, hovering over him and Nero is suddenly, painfully aware that Angelo's started to make slow deliberate rocking motions in his lap. Angelo twists, arches his back and grinds down into Nero's very evident arousal. "Give me a reason," Angelo begs. His eyes are empty. "I want one. I'll keep on living. Give me a reason to want, Nero."

 

Nero bites down on his lip at a particularly long grind. "Nn. A-Angelo," he says, shaken. It's the first time he's ever called Angelo by his first name, face to face.

 

Angelo draws back, waits for his reply. Even tear-stained, his face is handsome, uniquely striking. He fell straight into adulthood, Nero thinks. He never got time to be a boy, or a boy on the cusp of manhood curious to his awakening self-identity. He's probably never had a meaningful relationship with anyone, ever, Nero realizes, chagrined. He ignores the faint twinge in his heart at the thought of Corteo's death.  I shouldn't have forced this on him. He shudders. Why did we kill Laguna? We didn't have full proof. He should have grown up with a father, met a pretty girl-

 

Angelo moves again, a slow rise and fall of his hips, unmistakable seduction in his movements. "Stop- thinking," he gasps. "Just - just give me this _one_ thing. Just _once_."

 

And that just shatters all Nero's resistance, just like that. Angelo's always known how to get under his skin. He still- that spark is still there.

 

He surges forward, captures Angelo's lips with his mouth and those impatient hands in his. "You idiot," he chides roughly. "Do you really think I'd ever let it go at that?"

 

He feels the edges of Angelo's mouth turn up, just a little against his.

 

Then the moment dissolves and both of them are a tangle of limbs and muttered epithets as Nero shoves Angelo's shirt off his shoulders and helps him pull his pants down. If they're going to do this then so be it. Angelo pants heavily over him. "Hurry," he says. "You- take it off." His hands go to his briefs but still as Nero starts undressing himself.

 

Nero unbuckles his belt under Angelo's fixed stare. When he quirks a brow, Angelo flushes and turns his head sharply, cheeks pinking becomingly. It's naively endearing, how human he really is.

 

Nero pulls his pants the rest of the way down and draws Angelo closer. His fingers slip under the waistband of his briefs. "Come here," he says, canting his face up in open invitation.

 

Angelo moves obediently, and their mouths slide together as Nero finishes the last of Angelo's work for him. When Angelo settles back in his lap, they're flush skin to skin. He enjoys the contact, the reality of having a warm, willing body so close to his. It's been a while since he's done this. And Angelo- he's the perfect blend of something Nero wants to pull closer and push farther at the same time.

 

Nero continues the kiss, his hands sliding around and down.

 

Angelo takes the intrusion commendably well, tear darkened eyes fixed on Nero, his hips undulating in time with Nero's movements.  His face is still drawn, pained; with the marks of sorrow still etched into its lines but with a newly profound quality to it. He's harder now for it and yet softer, an unconquerable paradox, once more proud but so openly wanton, writhing beautifully on Nero's fingers. Nero can't tear his gaze away from him. It's breath-taking.

 

When he slides home, when he takes the one thing Angelo has left of his own, and gives him the only thing Nero has left to give, it's indescribable. Maybe because at the earth-shattering moment Nero realizes that he can never let him go. 

 

He shifts, deeper, and the sound it wrings from Angelo's lips is simply more music, just adds more to the indecipherable mix of emotion building in him.

 

"Angelo," he breathes, and it's definitely a prayer on his lips. "Angelo, Angelo." He's in too deep. He can't ever let go of this.

 

Angelo winds his arms around Nero's neck, buries his face against his shoulder. They move together now, a slow sweet rhythm that builds and builds and _builds_ -

 

Angelo shudders sweetly against him, open mouth on a ragged sigh.

 

Nero's head falls back, Angelo's name dying on his tongue. His hips jerk of their own accord as his own release finds him. He's still trembling and his breathing is only beginning to even out but when he looks into those amber eyes, now soft and sleepy, filled with languid heat, and a little less pain he thinks-

 

-just maybe.

 

He pulls him closer and rests their combined weight against the tree. Angelo drifts off, held in Nero's strong arms amid their discarded clothes. Nero keeps awake, the flush of sex leaving his body, watching the fire kindle, burst and settle into a warm burn of embers. He has a lot to think about. What they just did, what he'd planned to do, if this even changed things - his thoughts keep him from finding the same ease of unconsciousness. He's strangely reluctant now to carry out the plan he'd intended to execute no matter what. Because, despite everything...

 

The cold creeps closer and the morning ever nearer.

 

They reach the ocean the next day, Angelo spotting the hard shine of the sun reflecting off the waves from half a mile out. It's close to midday, the sun bearing down on them. The breeze does nothing to cool their hot sticky bodies and Nero wonders at the fact he can't see an end to the brilliant blue waters in the distance.

 

He parks, smokes a cigarette while Angelo walks on ahead of him. The wind catches at his clothes and tosses his hair about his face. It's a little too long now, Nero thinks. He should get it cut.

 

When he finally makes it onto the shore, marveling at the fine texture of the sand crunching beneath his shoes, Angelo has walked out a ways and back already.

 

He waits for Nero to catch up a bit and then starts walking. "The reason I didn't kill you," he says abruptly, passing Nero and continuing on without stopping. "Is because... I didn't want to."

 

Nero slows slows down, then stops walking entirely.

 

"Do you want to?" Angelo also stops. He turns around. The breeze lifts and his hair starts getting tossed about again, strands sticking to pale skin. He shades a hand against the glare of the sun, blinking at Nero. "Kill me, that is?"

 

Nero sighs. He considers the implications for a second, and the things inside him, all tangled together and mixed up into something. Then he considers lying, but he can't do it.

 

"I did," he says finally, crossing over to stand in front of Angelo. "Even now, a little, I think I do."

 

"Oh," Angelo utters quietly. He steps back, hands going to his sides.

 

Nero stops him, lays a hand on his shoulder. "Only when I think of them though," he says. "And I'm pretty sure I will, for a long time. But the thing is-"

 

"I need you," Angelo says, suddenly. His eyes are still steady on Nero, but open, vulnerable in a way he's never been before, not even the night before. It's thrilling, to finally know all of Angelo's secrets, to have him laid bare. There's finally an equilibrium to their relationship, one Angelo's just disturbed by his confession. Perhaps he should put them back on equal footing. After all Nero's learnt a few secret truths about himself.

 

And Nero pauses. Smiles a tender little crooked corner-of-his-mouth smile. "See, that's the thing," he says, feeling the weight of Angelo's expectant gaze on him and meeting it just as steadily.

 

Against the back-drop of the ocean, Angelo stands, his sharp features a stark contrast to the endless blue. His face is open, wind chafing at his skin, at his chapped pink lips. Nero wonders if those lips would taste of salt-brine if he kissed him, if he walked with Nero into the ocean, and it lapped up their steps, leaving not even foot-prints behind. He remembers a long time ago; when his father had done a favor for a friend and received some exotic gifts in gratitude, how Nero had loved to sift that salt between his fingers, the glittering color of it, a moonlit radiance held prisoner in each and every crystal. Rose salt, his father had called it, from the Uyuni salt flats. A vast expanse of sky above and salt below, a perfect expanse of black canvas in the darkness. Stars studded on a mirror of salt that could never hide its reflection away, even in the dark. He thinks it would be unbearable.

 

To lose that beauty even for a second.

 

"I think I need you too."

-

 **Sonnet XVII**  
  
_I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,_  
_or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off._  
_I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,_  
_in secret, between the shadow and the soul.  
_

_-Pablo Neruda_

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this all in one sitting. Apologies, it is not proofread nor beta'ed and I know I swore I'd double check but I have to get this out there. On a side note, I won't be updating my Guns and Drink series because this took most of my time today plus I didn't write much for it last week, it being full of this really cool prof who kept assigning me loads more work than he should. 
> 
> I mostly improvised this as I wrote. There were a few fun parts, where I had to google some stuff, like synonyms for hot (Angelo just can't keep being adj:hot you know) and then whether it was pants or trousers- (Americans in 1920 do say pants for most everything, apparently.) 
> 
> There was this part where I was actually googling underwear in the 1920 and found this image of 'two trim bucks' in their underlovlies showing off their really uncomfortable looking undies and just then someone walked in, did a double take at my screen and left rather quickly- T.T Hope you guys think it's worth everyone thinking 'oh that law major? yeah, major underwear creep'
> 
> So briefs it is.


End file.
